Logan Pearsall Smith citáty

strana 2

„Lidskost je ctností ženy, šlechetnost je ctností mužů.“

„V životě směřujeme ke dvěma věcem. Nejprve jdeme za tím, po čem toužíme, a potom si toho užíváme. Toho druhého dosahují jen ti nejmoudřejší!“

„Bohatství a statky jeví tím, čím skutečně jsou, tedy ohromným a přebujelým strojem vynalezeným k zajištění trochy zanedbatelného pohodlí… Bohatství a statky jsou nesmírným předivem, k jehož napnutí je třeba celoživotního úsilí, jež každou chvíli hrozí zavalit svého majitele a jež, dokud drží, ač může člověka ušetřit trochy drobného nepohodlí, nedokáže ochránit před žádnou vážnější nepřízní ročních dob. Uchrání před letní přeháňkou, ne před zimní bouří, ale nechávají člověka stejně jako dříve, ne-li více, vystavena úzkosti, strachu, nemocem, nebezpečí a smrti.“

„Pomlouvání mladých lidí je nezbytná součást duševní hygieny starých, která znamenitě povzbuzuje jejich krevní oběh.“

„Když začnete ztrácet svůj volný čas, dávejte pozor! Ztrácíte vlastní duši.“

“The notion of making money by popular work, and then retiring to do good work on the proceeds, is the most familiar of all the devil's traps for artists.”

“We all endeavour, as Spinoza says, to persist in our own being; and that endeavour is, he adds, the very essence of our existence. When, therefore, we find that what delighted us once can still delight us: that though the objects of our admiration may be intermittent, yet they move in fixed orbits, and their return is certain, these reappearances will suggest that we have after all maintained something of our own integrity; that a sort of system lies beneath the apparent variability of our interests; that there is, so to speak, a continuity within ourselves, a core of meaning which has not disintegrated with the years.”

“The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consist in nothing more than the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star.”

“To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and keep absolutely sober.”

“There are readers—and I am one of them—whose reading is rather like a series of intoxications. We fall in love with a book; it is our book, we feel, for life; we shall not need another. We cram-throat our friends with it in the cruellest fashion; make it a Gospel, which we preach in a spirit of propaganda and indignation, putting a woe on the world for a neglect of which last week we were equally guilty.
I am not at all sorry that I have never been cured of this form of youthful susceptibility; one may after all become the victim of more inadvisable forms of folly. My infatuations have at least one advantage; they may lead to satiety, but they do not often end in disillusion. I have, of course (who hasn’t?), my Bluebeard’s closet of dead loves, abandoned for ever; but for the most part I find that the objects of my former adoration are quite capable of awakening my old affection. My experiences of love at first sight, being followed by love at second or third or fourth sight, I enjoy the bliss of both the constant and the inconstant lover. Indeed, these returns to old books—as I have just now returned to Montaigne’s Essays—have often proved, in a life of desultory reading, to be among the pleasantest experiences of that pleasant scheme of existence.”

“That one should practice what one preaches is generally agreed, but anyone who has the indiscretion to preach what both he and his hearers practice must always incur—as Lord Chesterfield has incurred—the gravest moral reprobation.”